The Broad Brush: Your Alameda News in 60 Seconds

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Broad Brush, your two-sentence news review. Here’s what happened this week.

The city is paying its former Alameda Point developer, SunCal, more than $4 million to settle lawsuits the developer filed when city officials booted it off the Island in 2010. The Irvine-based developer had sought $117 million and the right to come back to Alameda, but a federal judge had tossed most of SunCal’s claims.

Alameda’s City Council got a trio of new members Tuesday, the first time the majority of the council has been replaced in over a decade. Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft, Tony Daysog and Stewart Chen ascended to the dais, replacing Beverly Johnson, Doug deHaan and Rob Bonta, who left the council midterm after winning a seat in the state Assembly.

An Alameda resident and onetime city employee who helped stabilize another East Bay city through a financial and political crisis is returning to City Hall as Alameda’s new assistant city manager. Liz Warmerdam will rejoin Alameda’s city staff in her new role on January 22.

A little-known facet of Alameda history is set for a makeover, as Alameda Municipal Power prepares to refurbish hundreds of decades-old streetlights and perform maintenance work on others that have illuminated local streets for more than a century. The electric company is set to refurbish nearly 700 “16-flute” streetlights installed between 1935 and 1949, at an anticipated cost of $360,000 a year over six years.

News in brief(er): Mayor Marie Gilmore signed a letter from mayors across the country urging President Barack Obama to pursue tighter gun controls … unions are accusing management of the Raley’s/Nob Hill grocery chain of breaking a strike accord … Angela’s Bistro and Bar is hosting a fundraiser for employees of American Oak, which suffered $450,000 in damage and was closed after a December 8 fire … An “Avoid the 21” checkpoint goes up Saturday … and a pair of Oakland men have been charged in the shooting deaths of two teenage girls who grew up together in Alameda.